thanks for being with us. in 2012 we got to see what mars looks like. it turns out mars likes kind of amazing. in 2012 we had one of the most successful and riveting o lilyms ever. if you're in the center or on the left it's a probably cause for celebration. there are many causes for celebrations in terms of what happened in 2012. that said, even with all that, kind of feels like 2012 is going to be a year we'll be happy to see the end of. american shootings from newton to aurora to oak creek. another year in syria. the new war in gaza.

penn state, trayvon martin. 2012 sucked which is why it's worth it to chronicle the things that do not suck. that did not suck about this year. legitimately without irony or only with a trace amount. behold a year much less than you remember it sucking. everybody on this show is a 13-year-old boy. drawing a circle around the florida panhandle is funny. he's then putting his hands on it. members of my staff were swearing that putting shapes on florida is always problematic. yes, i get it. i get it less than most people. i do see something in the

associat associated mess map. mitt romney won in orange, gingrich won in red. they totally saw it today. social security a giraffe. best new thing in the world today. you are grounded, staffers. this photo of mitt romney in iowa in october 2007 is the greatest campaign trail photo. in 2008 the gettings were so good that the famous romney fudge photo had a close second runner up with this one. remember this one. i still have no idea what was going on. between our winner and first runner up obviously, 2008 will never be surpassed in terms of genius photos from the presidential campaign trail. that doesn't mean we're not looking for contenders in 2012.

behold, we have a contender. this exists. what's going on? i don't know and neither do you. the caption says newt gingrich pimpbs the nose of bonnie ellison while shaking hands with supporters. he's pinching -- yes, he's doing that. why is he grabbing her nose? other people were getting their handshaken but she got her nose grabbed. he reached out and grabbed her face. nobody knows which is part of the wonder and perfection of it. we had the foresight to snap up a piece of santorum related real estate. he found himself in a little old

lady's living room with an incontinent dog in his lap and how he got up and with a pee stain he kept on campaigning. we decided to seize the opportunity. to help you out so no one takes it and does something rude with it, we have purchased and taken off the market dog pee can't stop santorum.com. it will now live forever as a redirect to our website. we still own that url to this day. we were smart to grab that. we now have video proof that he tells the dog pee can't stop me story on the campaign trail.

here he is saturday night. >> she hands me the glass of water and the dog jumps in my lap. okay. fine. i pet the dog, have a sip or two of water. the next thing i know there's a warm sensation on my lap. there's a huge wet spot. i start to move out the door. she goes take your pants off and i'll put them in the drier. that was the last i heard from her because i was out the door. now i'm walking down the sidewalk and at the end i'm two hours into my walk. i'm a mile from where my car is. it's still lots of daylight left. what do you do? undeterred i soldiered on. >> what did we pay for that url,

15 bucks. dog pee can't stop santorum.com. tell your friends. >> let the record show when rick santorum held her. she's not yet crying. >> she's happy. she's going to vote. >> what does it say? >> one day i will vote. >> look at her shoes. >> president obama will be visiting thailand but he boent be staying long. it's three countries in three days. because they can't schedule a bunch of official stops for the president to see all of thailands most famous sights, the u.s. embassy came up with another idea. we call it president fauxbama. a cardboard cut out which the embassy has photographed. they have done ten of these in all. flat president obama posed at

famous thai landmarks. even though we thought they toted him around the country to do this, these are theme park replicas of major lan marks across thailand. it's fauxbama visiting faux thailand. before this presidential campaign, remember that newt gingrich was the live newt girls guy. the former speaker of the house making money with direct mail an giving people fake awards that you had to pay thousands of dollars to collect. s >> you say you shouldn't go to work before you're 14, 16 years

old. you're totally poor. i tried to have a very simple model 37 most of these schools ought to get rid of unionized janitors and have one a master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. the nra has been too timid. i want to explain what i mean. a gingrich presidency will submit to the united nations a treaty that extends the right to bear arms as a human right for every person on the planet. by the end of my second term -- [ applause ] we will have the first permanent base on the moon an it will be american. >> that last inspired us to do the following for which i will be eternally grateful.

greatings from the year 2019. obviously, i'm on the moon where newt gingrich is the president of the moon. how can anybody be president of the moon you ask from the past where you live. back when he was just candidate gingrich, president newt not only promised a permanent colony on the moon but the end of the second term but he delayed would be an american colony. he said once he figured out how to get a few thousand americans up here, the moon could then become the 51st state. don't you miss the news when newt gingrich was the front-runner for the republican nomination. that happened in our lifetimes america. he was running first. you think mitt romney will inspire anybody to wear a space costume on a news show. will mitt romney ever reveal his true self via ring tone.

newt gingrich's ring tone is dancing queen. i think that nobody's going to take a chance on newt gingrich. i could be wrong. can you hear what he is playing? this is dancing queen by abba. i paid for the dancing queen ring tone and i'm keeping it. good-bye, sir. we will miss you until you do it again in four years, if you can figure out how to make money off of it. i live for days like this in politics.

easily the best new thing in my world today. best new thing in the world today. everybody's today's news best new thing in the world. best new thing in the world. there's a lot of them. hold on. we'll be right back. [ dylan ] this is one way to keep your underwear clean. this is another! ta-daa! try charmin ultra strong. it cleans so well and you can use up to four times less than the leading value brand. oh! there it is. thanks son. hey! [ female announcer ] charmin ultra strong has a duraclean texture that can help you get clean while still using less.

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mean a few thousand people bundled up in their rain gear and headed out to grant park in chicago to cheer on veterans of the iraq war and the afghanistan war as the second city staged the second welcome home parade. to say welcome home to the soldiers. go chicago. there were marching bands and motorcycles and war dogs and more than a thousand veterans turning out to hear thank you. with the december 15th parade, chicago became the biggest city in the united states to hold an event like this one. maybe in the year 2013 an event like this will take place in new york city. all yearlong regular joe and jane citizens took the initiative and decided to do it

on their own. every time they did it it was the best new thing in the world. our nation's first ever, look at that, first ever parade for troops coming home from the war in iraq. it happened saturday in st. louis, missouri. tens of thousands of people lined the streets. this is a thank you big enough to make the nation notice and personal enough to grab your heart and rattle it a little. >> twice he's flown home after serving in iraq. >> you could drop me in any city in the united states because i was home. >> reporter: he was touched by the out pouring of his hometown. >> completely overwhelmed. >> our nation has been debating whether now is a good time to celebrate veterans coming home from iraq with so many of them beredeployed to afghanistan. it's war that's ongoing. on sunday the new york giants will be playing the new england

patriots known as the super bowl. the winning team gets a big parade downtown. the new york giants got one in 2008 the last year they were champions. the patriots got one in 2005. there's nothing wrong with celebrating football. i wonder if it won't be weird for our country to go crazy over a sports team while still saying not yet to the veterans. my friend asked that flat out tonight are you really okay with your football team getting a ticker tape parade and not your iraq vets. i have a question for any military veterans watching now. do you want to rock and roll all night and party every day? you may get your chance because kiss is hiring a roadie.

they are looking for a set carpenter to help assemble their stage and operate official effects and take it down when the show is over. they say it's a hard job and need to be prepared to work hard, long hours. they want to hire a veteran to do this job. that's a great thing for someone who occupies that sweet overlapping spot between the u.s. military and the kiss army. great as that is, that's not the best new thing in the world. this is the best new thing. tomorrow tucson, arizona will look like this. these are pictures of the first ever parade in the united states to mark the end of the iraq war. to say welcome home and thank you to iraq war veterans. the war ended in december.

this first parade was in st. louis. tomorrow the second big parade in the united states of america to mark the end of the war. this time it will the be leld in tucson, arizona. this isn't the military or government coming up with this idea. this is just citizens. this organizers say they were inspired by what st. louis did. we've had three debates so far. the candidates have spent five hours arguing about medicare and social security and jobs. they are argued over the rules of the debate and big bird. there's been no talk about how we are treating veterans. lots of americans have been

thinking about this generation of veterans that come home and need a job. ordinary americans are holding their own parades. welcome home love florida and tucson and new england coastal ports smith new hampshire. the pentagon, for reasons that i do not start to understand, still say they do not want new york city to hold a parade. new york city is where we've always done this. new york did throw one ticker tape parade for the new york giants and at their parade the football parade, we met the willis family. they brought a picture of her

son and a huge giants fan. sergeant willis sent a message before the big game. >> i'm from new york. i want to say hi to my family and go big blue. >> his mom said she promised she would go to the parade if the giants won and she would bring his picture. the giants won and new york held the parade and glenda kept her promise. she said it would be compassionate to have a parade for her son and daughter in new york. tonight, there's still no parade in the works for new york city to welcome home the troops and mark the end of the iraq war. i can tell you that sergeant willis is home from iraq and afghanistan and he and his family are here with us watching the show in this very room. welcome home. look, you're on tv. it's really cool to have you here and it's the best new thing in the world today.

st. louis, missouri pulling off its welcome home heroes parade. they did it first in the country. there will be more to come. best new thing in the world. they keep getting better from here. stay with us.

whether it's helping to tag a bear in the wild or tranquilizing a tiger or shooting a gray whale to collect skin samples or discovering two greek urns in the black sea or whether it's riding a motorbike or putting out wildfires from a plane, whether it's showing off his judo moves or swimming in a siberian lake topless or fishing topless or riding a horse

topless. it's inarguable that russia's president is manly of the photo op. his newest is hockey star. there's one best new thing this year that included a mystery guest impersonating the anchor of this show in a way that made me want to quit and make her the host of the show. that's coming up. stay with us. ♪ [ female announcer ] for everything your face has to face. face it with puffs ultra soft & strong. puffs has soft, air-fluffed pillows for 40% more cushiony thickness.

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the best new thing in the world today is a growth opportunity for republican political strategist. a lucrative source of revenue just waiting to be tapped. i, jane lynch, am not one to give career advice to republicans but there's money to be made on promoting gay rights within the republican party. you see the defacto head of the republican party has taken a strong position on the side of the gay rights debate that if you're a politician it's the side you don't want to be on.

the rest of his party may be about to evolve around him. this weekend a respective republican pollster, one who helped george w. bush win re-election wrote an operative saying i've got a lot of polling and the gay marriage thing is getting popular. he suggested republicans might want to change the way they talk about stuff like gay marriage. maybe start saying that support for gay marriage is consistent with conservative fundamentals. as people who promote personal responsibility, family values, commitment and stability and emphasize freedom and limited government, we have to recognize that freedom means freedom for every one. this includes the freedom to decide how you live and to enter into relationships of your choosing. the freedom to live without excessive interference of the force. that's a republican telling

republicans to reconsider gay rights. he may be one of the first to do it but he won't be the last. jane lynch, where's the job opportunity in all of this. one will have to teach republicans how to talk about gay rights without seeming like they have caved. some strategists will have to make it their specialty to teach republicans how to be pro-gay while still sounding angry. that's a tall order but you can charge more money. republicans are trying to figure out how to choose gracefully. best new thing in the world today. >> you're the best new thing in the world today. when you said folks. do i do that? >> you do. i was mocking you. >> i felt it in painful way. thank you for doing the best new thing in the world. >> thank you for having me. >> i'm in the guest claihair.

>> how does it feel? >> a little subservient. do you want to be cable host? >> i'd love to play one. i know how you workday in and day out. >> you had a republican pollster memo in mind. the thing about the subject of what you just talked about that's interesting is this is something, you're out sue sylvester on "glee," and you've written this coming out story and we are in a moment when the politics of gay rights are rapidly changing the country. >> i know. really fast. it's an issue that i have not really taken personally so much. it's something that i watch on television with great interest. i have a stake in it.

i've got skin in the game but when the president came out and said that he supported the dignity of our families and our relationships that really moved me. that really touched me for the first time. i realized i had been kind of distanced emotionally from it but that broke it open for me. it made me happy. >> that's one of those things that covering it as a gay person, thinking about it as a gay person and covering it as a person in the news. i felt like half of me had to have talk with the other half. the way that was responded to and the way people are talking about it in politics world, how many people agree with the president? it's going to help with them and how many people disagree and it will hurt with them? the gay part of me, the human part wants to explain, the big issue, the big question is not already who agrees with him but who is still changing their mind? does this change history? >> i don't know if it changes

history. i don't know if it was political calculus on his part but i think he believes in the dignity of our relationships and our right to exist. i think there are people we're not going to get and that's fine and probably not in this lifetime but i think there are changeable folks. a lot of people change when they are in the presence of one of us. they get to know us and our family. i think that's being -- i think that's why being out, for me any way, is important. allowing myself to appear in public with my family and not hiding about it and i think that's really important. >> i have a sound bite that i wanted to play that was from before president obama said what he did. a few days before that vice president biden to everybody's surprise started talking about how he was all in favor of same sex marriage rights but he hit a

pop culture tv stone when he have saying that. >> this is evolving. my measure david and i take a look at when things change is when the social culture changes. i think will and grace probably did more to educate the american public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far. i think people fear that which is different. now they are beginning to understand. >> as a person who is part of the phenomenon that is glee, how do you think it felt to the will and grace people to be mentioned? >> i know all four of them and i'm sure they are thrilled about it. when they first did that show and nbc sat them down and say this could turn into a huge thing and you might be threat threatened. it might get ugly. it never happened. these are flawed characters. they are funny. you laugh at them. you want to go into that

apartment whatever night it was on. like biden said, you have to put us out in the culture and see who we are. if we're flawed it has nothing to do with our orientation. it's because we're human beings. >> as people know more gay people, as more people come out that tends to start to soften attitudes about gay rights. is there an extension as people are exposed through culture or tv that that also has that affect? >> absolutely. people come up to me like they know me because i appear on their television. >> they want you to bully them. >> say something mean to me. they think we're they're friends. we do befriend the people on our television. the creator of our show takes this seriously. that's why he has ever flavor of

kid in the glee club. he wants every kid to have somebody they can point to and go that's me and look i'm being supported. i'm in place where people have my back and i get to raise my voice in song. >> i always felt like one of the things that i would always try to explain to people about what i learned from junior high and high school is that popularity doesn't buy you anything in later life. really you ought to look for the kids who are -- the dorkier you are at those important ages, the cooler you're probably going to be as an adult. it's not always true but that's what i observed. >> if you're a dork or geek it's because it's that time in your life and your genuine. you're not trying to be somebody else. how many stars have we heard about that failed as adults because they haven't gone through that. they haven't gotten to know

their true self. >> i feel like i'm waiting to meet my true self. it's going to be in a dark alley and it's going to be a fight. the president completing his evolution. on the right in the republican party mitt romney has gone the other direction in his stance on gay rights. when he ran for senate he said he would reach to the left and now he's not only against equal marriage right, he's against civil unions. >> even us talking together now he's probably against that. >> it's probably illegal somewhere and he supports that states right to make it that way. i understand how people evolve on this issue. it's harder to understand how people devolve. >> i don't buy it. i don't think it's genuine. i think it's politically calculated. >> mitt romney.

>> i think deep down inside. >> if he wants to come on the show or fake me, which is you, that would be awesome. >> the final e airs next news on fox and the new book which is awesome is now on paper back. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any time you want to do the show i can lend you an $11 blazer. cen a whole new kind of clean. with tide pods. just one removes more stains than the 6 next leading pacs combined pop in. stand out.

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this week, this picture became a brand new idea to everybody on the internet machine. it became a hook for the best new politics mean we've had in a long time. hey, girl. it's madame secretary. the former secretary of state said then i left her a text saying i left my favorite sunglasses. sorry. i haven't seen them. hey, hill what you doing? running the world. i love this text from hillary clinton. fish and game were able to corner the bear in somebody's back ward but not before the best new thing in the world happened. one guy learned a lesson about

texting and walking. see the guy. it's a bear. can we see that dpen. there's the bear. there's the guy texting looking down. then notes a little something. oh, run away. advice is don't run away. make noise and try to appear as large as possible. texting dude is okay. also bear is okay. tranquilized and transported to the national forest for release back into the wild even if it does have an unsightly ear tag. >> when you are this close to hoover dam it makes you realize how small a human is. you can't be the town who builds this. you can be the guy that stops something like this. we've got a project like this waiting for the president's go

ahead supported by republicans and democrats. it provides energy security and up to 130,000 jobs. >> national republican congressional committee, you nailed me. you got me exactly right. it's uncanny. there is no poop fairy. there's no winged creature ready to sweep out of guy. we have just received word that the simultaneously disillusioning and destructive don't ploobelieve in the poop f campaign is expanding. they are planning to reveal it this spring. way back in 2004 an early it ration of the poop fairy was

unveiled. >> do your part and scoop the poop. there's no such thing as the poop fairy. >> good move as adopting it as your own. it worked in colorado. the original poop fairy was from virginia. she was a chocolate lab. >> it's the dutch word for yummy. the noise the scooter makes the yummy, dominos. watch it in action on the street.

the best part is it's just a going making the noise. ♪ somebody's cutting up onions in the studio. perhaps my allergies are acting up. i'm a crier. you can't do this to me. the parents are named chowder and clementine. they have nine children. he's the weird one named kevin. mr. putin took to the rink.

he was on team of amateurs. president putin's team won. it's how his team won and his role in the glory that's important. can your american president score a hockey goal? oh, yeah. putin can. can we look at that for a second. here is the first pass and there's president putin missing it. here, far, far away is the defender. the guy way out there. the defender from the team of the best players, president putin's defender keeps a safe distance from him. he's left completely alone to level the score. it's good to be king. kathryn ferguson academy would be closed. the young women of the school decided they were not having it. they started protesting and

getting arrested. we started reporting on their fight to keep this very ambitious school open and in june of last year, those girls and their founding principal won their fight. they kept the doors open. them winning that fight last year means this is possible this year. yesterday 24 young women suited up in white robes. they got their diplomas handed to them. all the of the graduates this week have applied for college. congratulations class of 2012. you would not be here had you not fought for it. best new thing in the world today. definitely not the best hockey game but for pure authoritarian hue bris it's the best new thing. one of these otters is not like the otter otters is the best new

thing in the world. happy 100th birthday fenway park. you're the best new old thing in the world. your new fanfare is the best thing tonight. this close encounter between a texter and nature. oh, geez, best new thing in the world today. especially the hair. you got my hair right because this is what my hair looks like. best new thing in the world today. liquor, liquor. best new thing in the world today. best new thing in the world. we've got more ahead. stay with us. [ male announcer ] house rule number 53. big time taste should fit in a little time cup. new single serve cafe collections from maxwell house now available for use in the keurig k-cup brewer. always good to the last drop.

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one of the things i love best about what i do for a living is it's almost impossible to predict what is going to take

off. people trying to make a particular thing take off don't always get their way. sometimes some other force takes hold. it's especially true in a year like 2012. in the wake of important debate between the candidates and it ended up the topic that everybody was talking about was big bird after everything else, after the tens of hundreds of millions of dollars spent to make them talk about whatever they wanted them to talk about, the 2012 race was brought to you by the letter b. things happen. just as this show is brought to you by a huge number of hugely talented and hard working people who do you not see on camera but without whom i could not do what i do. the best staff in all of cable television works on this tv show. i don't know what i did to deserve it but i'm grateful for it. i'm humbled by their talent. i'm nothing without them. none of us wouldn't be here if

you weren't here watching. from all of us here, thank you for watching this show. we love our jobs and you make it possible for us to have them. happy new year. ♪ ♪

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